Hardened gearwheels are manufactured by a plurality of successive operations. First, a blank made of unhardened steel is provided with internal or external toothing by one of the many methods known from the state of the art. This can take place by ramming, gear hobbing or gear-skiving. The pre-toothed work wheel is hardened next. After being hardened, precision machining is performed by honing/grinding. Precision machining is carried out using a plurality of machine tools that are different from one another, such that the work wheel is rechucked each time. This requires keying of the honing wheel into the tooth gaps on the toothed work wheel, for example, because the latter is chucked with a concentricity error. In precision machining, an allowance retained previously is removed from the teeth of the toothing to be fabricated. The allowance is distributed irregularly over the circumference of the work wheel due to an unavoidable chucking error and unavoidable hardening distortion.
DE 35 33 064 A1 describes a method for machining the flanks of gearwheels by gear skiving as well as a suitable device for doing so. The flanks of unhardened gearwheels, but also hardened gearwheels with straight or helical toothing, should be machined by gear skiving. Grinding or hard shaving, but also honing or precision grinding, should be replaced by gear skiving of hardened tooth flanks.
DE 103 05 752 A1 describes a combination tool for toothing of cylindrical components, wherein a skiving wheel for gear skiving and at least one shaving cutter for shaving are arranged on a common shaft so that in two successive machining steps, gear skiving can be carried out on one machine first and then shaving can be carried out without a workpiece change.